Celestial Cinquecento - 1960 Autobianchi Bianchina 140B

Beaten but not down: A 1960 Autobianchi comes back in style

Feature Article from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

Autobianchi's roots can be traced back to Bianchi, a manufacturer founded in 1899 that was named after its founder, Edoardo Bianchi. Bianchi's first motorized product was a single-cylinder three-wheeler; after that came increasingly large and expensive four-cylinder machines. During the war, the company found itself building motorcycles and trucks for the Italian army.
Fiat and Pirelli assisted the struggling Bianchi automobile division after World War II. Pirelli was already molding a great number of tires for Fiat, who supplied mechanicals to Bianchi. Autobianchi, created in 1957, took Fiat's existing economy-car platforms and added luxury and unique body styles, which included a convertible and delivery van, all based on the Fiat Nuova 500 and its two-cylinder, 21-horsepower engine.
Under the stylish exterior of this 1960 Autobianchi lies a Fiat 500. If the light green color of the car looks familiar, that's because it is. Some may recognize the latter part of the Autobianchi name spelled out on the downtube on a celeste green bicycle in their garage. Yes, it was the same Bianchi, though the companies that made the bicycles and automobiles were two different entities.
While the 21-horsepower, 500cc engine twin-cylinder (479cc nominal, to be precise) may seem absurd by modern horsepower benchmarks, the Bianchina is ridiculously light compared to today's tankish transports. The concept behind the Fiat 500 was a simple, fun and inexpensive car for a country devastated by war. The Autobianchi was marketed as an upscale version of mobile austerity.
This 1960 Autobianchi Bianchina 140B belongs to Ronald Keenen of Narvon, Pennsylvania. Ronald found the Bianchina as a complete but sad-appearing car in a nearby Littleton barn in 1995. He had confidence from the beginning that the uprated economy runabout would return from its woeful state of complete disrepair to drive in style again.
Ronald is a retired collision man by trade, and still occasionally works when he likes to. Many years of taking cars from crushed to complete gives him an innate ability to see a completed restoration before it is done. Ronald knew at first sight that the beaten but not down Autobianchi microcar would be reborn. "I knew I could bring it back to life," he said.
The reality of Ronald's restorative superpower is his own Kryptonite. While his vision remains focused, the project can become difficult in the middle of completion, at the point where parts and bits are spread out among the platers and upholsterers. "I always have that vision with anything. When I'm in the middle of a restoration, it's the hardest thing, because I already know what it's going to look like when it's done. I have that vision, and I look at any car or anything that way," Ronald said.
The good news was that besides the unusual bonus of a complete car, Ronald already had room for the project. The majority of this small car restoration was completed at home, in the unoccupied space of a one-car garage. Retirement, however, does come with benefits from work. "All I had was a single-car garage, but when I went to paint the outside of the car, I took it down to the shop where I work."
Even the cold Pennsylvania winters were overcome in the old-style garage. A small upright kerosene heater was sufficient for Ronald and the 10-foot-long car. "That's what I used to heat the garage," he said. "It has a macadam floor. It was terrible. I'd go to jack something up and it would sink into the floor."
Ronald's experience drastically reduced his cost of restoration, even if he did not keep track of how many hours it took. There was an effort at first, but this changed with the passage of many hours. "I don't have any idea how many hours. I was going to try to keep track, but when you're into it, it adds up to many hours." Body repairs were fabricated using 18-gauge steel, MIG welded into place. The original paint was sanded away using a 36-80-180 grade sequence of Feather-Rite sandpaper. Ronald kept track of the paint and materials as the car was taken down, and repainted everything with PPG products.
In the photos, the yellow tinted paint is a self-etching metal primer applied over bare metal. Gray paint is a PPG Fill Prime build primer applied on top of the yellow. A purple tint primer matched the original paint and undercoat combination found on the underside of the Autobianchi.
The interior and engine were already installed when the car was masked off and painted with PPG Concept Acrylic Urethane single-stage paint. Though the Bianchina seemingly has less surface area than a full-size car, the same amount of paint was used in the process of returning the original luster of luxury to the body. "I usually get a gallon to do a job," Ronald said. "It took almost a gallon. Two to three coats are normal, so you have buildup for sanding and buffing if necessary."
Ronald painted on the white top after the green, adding Italian style circa 1960. The underside primer, suspension, and various brake components were all color-matched; whatever was found on the way off was sprayed back on accordingly.
Though the car had spent a dozen years in a barn before Ronald picked it up, the interior was in rough shape. Still, there were enough surviving areas of the original upholstery material that Ronald and Stumpf's Upholstery in Leola, Pennsylvania, were able to source a close match to the original color and texture. Ronald sent off the tattered bits and pieces to Stumpf's, and they returned a like-new interior. Though the Bianchina interior was deluxe compared to the exceedingly sparse Fiat 500, simplicity kept costs down.
The same forces that ate up the interior also chewed through one of the floor pans. Replacement panels are available now, but not when Ronald had to fabricate steel to fill in the hole on the driver's side back in the Nineties.
The retractable top material is a fabric stretched around a steel armature. The original was intact enough to have a new piece sewn at Stumpf's. Ronald stretched it back over the armature and installed it. The seat-back uprights are similar to a webbed beach chair. The original webbing had mostly disintegrated, with duct tape holding what was left together.
Though the Bianchina may appear feature-packed compared with the sparse appointments of the Fiat 500, the electrical system matched the Cinquecento simplicity. The electrical parts and wiring in this example survived unscathed by the ravages of time. With a total of four fuses, the Bianchina electrical system is as simple as the webbing in the vinyl covered seats. The original wiring, connectors, and harness were retained in the restored runabout. A little cleanup of connections was all it took to deliver electricity to the bulbs and accessories.
The independent rear suspension handles all of the driving dynamics that the 500cc twin can deliver, while the front suspension shares a single transverse leaf spring between its control arms. This exceedingly simple system saved space, weight, and cost to the post-war consumer. Ronald took careful note of all the colors used in the production of the suspension, and duplicated the finishes in restoration.
The 3.5-inch-wide by 12-inch-diameter wheels were originally shod with Pirellis, but sourcing a match in North America proved difficult. Ronald consulted with Coker Tire and ordered up a set of whitewall 4.50-12 fitment BFGoodrich replacements. The tires cost around $115 each, despite their diminutive diameter.
The first step back in 1995 was to see if the old Fiat engine was still up to its task. The engine got a going over and cleanup before restoration. Renewing the carburetor, distributor cap, rotor, and spark plug wires got the two cylinders burbling again. For a time, it was good. Ronald pulled the mighty mill in 2009 and took it to Reardon's Machine Shop for a total overhaul.
The older engine proved more difficult to source parts for than the later model Fiat 500 engines. The long line from Chris Obert & Co. in California, to Italy, and then back to Pennsylvania resulted in further confusion. Ronald said that after a time of getting the wrong parts, when they finally did arrive, he let his machinist do the talking. This did not immediately alleviate problems. "I had Pat at Reardon Machine Shop call himself and explain what he needed, and he still ended up with the wrong parts!"
Fourteen months later, the engine was remanufactured and ready for installation. A long-block rebuild, even though the block in this case is not very long, came in at around $2,000 complete. The original four-speed transaxle was still strong, and was bolted up to the like-new powerhouse. Top speed of 60 MPH was no longer a dream! Neither was 52 MPG.
As so often happens when a project either nears completion or is summarily driven around, the parts cars found the car that needed them. The one original part that was too far gone was a pot-metal bumper end piece. The bit was so pitted that it could not be chromed. In the search for another came not one but two parts cars.
"A friend found one of them on the Fourth of July. He bought it for me for about 150 bucks at auction. I got an owner's manual, a service manual, and a bumper end out of that car. I didn't use the panels at all because by that time I had everything straightened." Word got out that Ronald was looking for the elusive Bianchina, and like the first parts car, the car found him. People knew that Ronald was looking, and the parts cars suddenly appeared. "I don't know why. It just came up somewhere along the line. I thought maybe I could use something. I did save a lot of parts."
This effect, sparked by previously hidden Bianchina parts cars, has increased in intensity. One car led to the revelation of many--even another in the process of being restored mere minutes from the very spot where Ronald restored this car.
"You find out there's more and more of these cars around. It's something you never saw on the road, then all the sudden they're everywhere," he said. "I talked to a guy up at Carlisle, who lives maybe 20 minutes from us, who has one that he wants to restore."
While the Bianchina was worn and aged from a long barn slumber when Ronald found it, completeness outweighed condition. The only thing the car did not come with was a title. If Ronald has any advice for the Autobianchi or similar restorer in you, it is to always find the most complete car possible, but never buy a car without a title.

This article originally appeared in the October, 2011 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.